I’ve fallen in love with fruit crumbles. Baked fruit desserts are no stranger to me—I’ve made many a crisp, cobbler, and pandowdy—but it wasn’t until recently that I learned the art of the crumble. A crumble is just like a crisp, except there are no oats involved: mix together some flour, sugar, and baking powder, stir in some melted butter and there you have it—a crumbly crumble topping.

Deb is the one to thank for the abundance of crumbles in this house (ever since I discovered crumbles, I’ve been exercising my newfound skills with alarming frequency), and while I’ve tried several different fruit combinations, my favorite is what I’ve dubbed Three Reds Fruit Crumble: sour cherries, strawberries, and rhubarb.

All these fruits are in season at the same time in our little corner of the world; the rhubarb is on the way out, the strawberries are half-way over, and the cherries are just in.

I don’t think there is a better way to celebrate the crimson windfall than to toss the fruits with lemon and sugar, top them with buttery, zesty crumbs, and bake them together until the whole mess is thick, bubbly, and golden brown on top.

This crumble, my dears, is the reason these fruits are all in season at the same time. It’s positively providential, and served warm with sour cream ice cream (hang tight!) on top, and you might just think you’ve died and gone to heaven.

Three Reds Fruit Crumble
Adapted from Deb at Smitten Kitchen

For the fruit filling:
1 ½ cups rhubarb chunks (approximately 1-inch)
2 cups sour cherries, washed and pitted
2 cups sliced strawberries
juice of one lemon
½ cup, plus 2 tablespoons, sugar
3 tablespoons Therm Flo or cornstarch
pinch of salt

In a large bowl, combine the fruits with the lemon juice.

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, Therm Flo, and salt. Sprinkle over the fruit and toss to coat.

Dump the fruit into a greased 9 x 13 pan (this is plenty big, so you could downsize a little if you wish). Top the fruit with the crumble mixture (see below) and bake at 375 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until the fruits are bubbly thick and the crumble part is golden brown.

Serve warm, with (sour cream) ice cream.

For the crumble:
1 1/3 cups flour
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
zest from one lemon
8 tablespoons butter, melted

Combine the flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. Add the melted butter and stir till thoroughly combined and crumbly. (This can be made ahead and refrigerated.)

About one year ago: Fresh Strawberry Cream Pie. I made this the other day and the kids ate so much (my fault—I served them too much) that they nearly got sick.

I’m so proud of myself! I made those ribs, and they far exceeded my expectations and fully met my hopes. I’m pumped.

I was pretty convinced I would ruin them, you know. I’m not so confident around large chunks of meat (they tend to go all tough on me), so my success was extra sweet. I may even have crowed about it a little.

Now that I look back on it, the ribs weren’t at all hard to make. It only felt difficult because I had no idea what I was doing. I did, however, have sense enough to pick a recipe from Julie’s blog. That woman has a knack for churning out high-quality and high-quantity food on a daily basis, and she writes about it in such a way that you feel like you can do it too.

I tried, that day, to crank out the food a la Julie, but even with my mother’s help, I struggled. We were on our feet for hours. My mother grated, chopped, pitted, topped, sliced, minced, peeled, and mashed till her eyelids sagged and her shoulders slumped. And then she washed dishes till her eyes crossed.

I cooked, gave orders, cooked more, and gave more orders. Mom thinks I could have a restaurant, but even with kitchen staff to boss around, I’m convinced I never could.

Along with the meat, we fixed two different salads (both good, but no swoonage happened), skillet cornbread (swoonage happened), oven-roasted asparagus, and Sour Cream Ice Cream with Three Reds Fruit Crumble (copious amounts of swoonage ensued). We were prepping dishes for other meals, too, plus I had done a bunch of cooking already that morning. But even though I was bone-weary, when I got up the following morning, I headed straight out to the kitchen to make a cake (which you’ll hear about later).

Perhaps I need an intervention?

So, reflecting my current state of no-holds-barred cooking, I’m going to pile on the recipes. There will be a barrage of food-related posts (okay, perhaps only two or four, maybe five), so I suggest you just go ahead and surrender now. Or else clear out.

First, the ribs.

Mr. Handsome wrestled them from cooler to fridge that evening, and the next morning I made a dry rub mix.

After rubbing them good with the mix (I took the “rub” part very seriously)…

I cut them in half again so that the once gargantuan slab of meat was now in four, more reasonable pieces.

I let them sit at room temp for a couple hours before popping them back into the fridge for another six hours. Mid-afternoon I plunked them onto two trays, tightly covered them with foil, and baked them for nearly three hours. Then out to the grill (very low heat) they went, where I repeatedly brushed them with sauce and turned them, in between times closing the lid.

The end results were flavorful, not terribly fatty (I discarded a couple cups of grease after the baking), and fall-off-the-bone tender. Yee-haw!

Barbecued Pork Ribs
Adapted from Julie’s blog, Dinner with Julie

1 rack of ribs (as in, a whole-honkin’ half of a pig, about 9 pounds), cut into quarters
2 tablespoons smoked paprika (or plain)
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2-3 cups sweet barbecue sauce

Six to twenty-four hours before cooking time, mix together the dry rub spices (everything but the sauce) and rub it on both sides of the ribs. There may be a little leftover which you can either save or toss. (I tossed.) Let the ribs sit at room temperature for an hour or two before covering tightly with plastic wrap (I wrapped them up in individually and then piled them into one pan) and transferring them to the refrigerator to “marinate” till you are ready to cook them.

Place the ribs, meat side up, in two trays that have sides and cover them tightly with foil. Bake at 300 degrees for 2 ½ hours. (Warning: they don’t smell that great while baking—not at all how you hope they will taste—but stay calm, they will be delicious.)

Using tongs, remove the ribs from the pans (be cautious when pulling the trays out of the oven because they are sloshy-full of hot, bubbling fat) and transfer them to a couple plates. Brush them all over with barbecue sauce and put them on the grill. Grill on very low heat, lid closed, for thirty minutes, turning and basting every ten minutes.

And that’s it!

About one year ago: Rhubarb Tea and Rhubarb Tart

I not only expect my children to be perfectly well-behaved, keep their nails trimmed and not pick their noses, I also expect them to kowtow to me five times a day.

Okay, so not really. They did this all on their own. They’re really into mother worship. It’s the cool thing in this house.

Okay, so that’s not true either.

They were just messing around, doing their thing which consists of pulling out the off-limits dresses, sneaking the boots from my closet, digging through Miss Beccaboo’s makeup collection, and patching it all together with some dress-up clothes.

The Queen Motif has been central to their imaginative play. Probably because I treat them like slaves.

Don’t over-analyze this, okay? Thanks.

In other news, I think I’m way over my head.

I got the brilliant idea to make ribs this weekend. I’ve never made ribs before (not counting short ribs) but how hard could it be, right?

Well, turns out ribs are a little trickier than I thought. After clicking my way around the web, I lost a good deal of my cocky I-can-do-anything attitude, but still, I called the meat shop and got prices, gasped a little, steeled my resolve, and planned a trip to town. These ribs were no longer a take-it-or-leave-it idea, they were essential. I had to learn how to do ribs. My mental and emotional stability depended upon it. End of story.

Except that it wasn’t. At the butcher shop I asked for a whole rack of ribs. “Do you want them cut in half, or the whole rack?”

“The whole rack,” I said confidently.

Soon a beefy man came forth from the back room where buzz saws whined and knives thunked, bearing high my (hold the load!) massive rack of ribs. I gulped and watched wordlessly as the man wrangled them up onto the scales to weigh them. Slowly it dawned on me that they would fill my entire oven. Come to think of it, I didn’t even have a baking pan large enough to hold them!

“Um, could you maybe cut them in half after all?” I asked timidly, my previous bluster squashed flat under all that pork.

Now the cut-in-half ribs are sitting in the cooler out on the porch. I didn’t realize I would need to clear out half of my refrigerator to make space for some barrel-chested pig.

My plan (unless one of you convinces me otherwise) is to coat the ribs with a dry rub mix, bake them at 300 degrees for two-and-a-half hours and then finish them off on the grill. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. (Lots of other yummies are in the works: this morning’s shopping cart held seasoned rice vinegar, serrano chilis, tomatillos, avocados, limes, cabbages, tomatoes, lemon curd, and sour cream. When I got home I called my mom to tell her to stop eating now.)

The pork isn’t the only new thing I’m trying these days. I’m taking on another endeavor, one that I am most excited about (and non food related). I’ll give you three guess (if you already know, please hold your tongue).

About one year ago: Asparagus, Goat Cheese, and Lemon Pasta and De Butchery, in which we chop the heads off our chickens and put them in the freezer, and The Tip of the Strawberry Iceberg.